How to Set Up Colorful Planted Aquarium without CO2 Injection

I quit making aquarium video, there will be no more aquarium related videoa in this channel. My new video will be like this:
• Video
This colorful planted aquarium without CO2 injection was set using the principle of The Walstad Method with some adjustment. If you want to learn more about this method, please consider to visit Diana Walstad’s website here:
dianawalstad.com/
And buy the book if necessary.
All plants require CO2 to do photosynthesis. Our aquatic plants aren’t exception. Unfortunately, there are only a few CO2 in the water and most of the time this is the biggest limiting factor to grow submerged plants. That’s why we need a method to provide CO2 for our underwater plants. One of the method is to use soil under our substrate. The metabolism of organic matters in the soil by the bacteria will provide CO2 for our plants during early time after the tank was set. Then, we can add the organic matter in our tank with fish food.
Soil can provide CO2 for our plants, but the CO2 supply will still be limited. So we also need to reduce our plants’ demand of CO2 by using moderate lighting. Lighting act as catalyst for photosynthesis. The higher light intensity, the more CO2 that our plants need. By using moderate but adequate lighting, we can grow more plants that people tend to believe. I have no complete data about the plants that can be grown in in this kind of planted aquarium set up, but in this video, there are at least 14 species of plants, which are:
1 Ludwigia sp red
2 Red lotus
3 Hygrophila difformis
4 Hygrophila polysperma ‘sunset’
5 Red cabomba
6 Helanthium bolivianum ‘vesuvius’
7 Three colored lotus
8 Rotala macrandra
9 Green rotala
10 Rotala H’Ra
11 Cryptocoryne pontederifolia
12 Cryptocoryne wendtii
13 Alternanthera reineckii ‘mini’
14 Hair grass
After we provide CO2 and moderate lighting, we also need to make sure the CO2 stay in the water for as long as possible. This require us to give minimum surface agitation. The gas exchange between water and air will release CO2. This gas exchange happen in the water surface. The more water surface, the quicker the gas exchange. Surface agitation will increase the water surface so by reducing it, we will also reduce the gas exchange. So we need a filter that can keep the surface agitation minimum. Also, the filter also should only has moderate water movement because strong water movement will add mechanical stress to our plants.
That’s all that we need to do to grow plants in planted aquarium without CO2 injection. If we do it correctly, the success rate is high. Good luck and thank you.
Credit Music:
"Sovereign"
“Rain Will Fall”
“White”
“Midnight Tale”
Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
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